Zoraptor

I'd suspect the clearinghouse issue is vista or win7 related. My Graphics card is technically below minimum spec and I get no lag at all in XP- I have dual core, so it ain't that.

That's functioning correctly. Basically all the activation based systems use a "hash function". It grabs a hardware profile, applies a mathematical function to it and returns that as a unique value. The most important part of this, and the only thing which will definitively trigger a full reactivation in any of Tages/ SecuROM/ Uniloc is changing your network card as this changes the MAC address which is the only guaranteed unique identifier- maybe unique processor identifiers too, but I think they're 'hidden' by default. If you reinstall on the same computer and have changed a limited amount of (depends on system as to what this amounts to) or no hardware then it registers as the same system and uses the same activation. Constantly asking for reactivation when there have not been any hardware changes would definitively be a bug though, even if it then uses the same activation every time.

AFAIK, the International Brigades were not involved in that kind of suppression. The International Brigades weren't particularly, but you've picked a rather poor quote given that one of the major problems on the Republican side of the war was the power mongering and ideological obsessions of the communists with people on their own side. Certainly Orwell would have disagreed with your quoted passage very strongly.

You probably need to give a bit more information on things like which graphics card you're using, if you're playing at 800x600 instead of posting a reduced resolution screenshot your card may be a problem. Else try changing all the options in the advanced graphics menu to off or low/ minimal if you haven't already tried it, then readd one at a time if that fixes the issue.

To reiterate (and clarify), I've remapped all three of those successfully solely through the in game menu. I'm using XP so some sort of Win7/ Vista nannying could be a possibility.

I've turned bloom off and see all UI. Still have DoF on though.

Not a winning argument that one, the communist involvement in Spain was definitively not a high point. Unless you're a particular fan of Animal Farm which probably would not have existed without it.

IIRC the section which needs to be changed is the bottom one (APPlayertInput). You would need to make sure there aren't duplicates there though (ie X isn't assigned to two actions) I've remapped X and C as I use the Looking Glass WZXC rather than WASD, and it has worked fine except for conversations where it is still S for 'down', but I mainly use the arrow keys for convos.

The metadata file can be opened with a hex editor (or even notepad, at a pinch) and has the save game name and the date in it, seems very likely to be the ones displayed in the save game list.

Yeah, the stealth is fine, though I think the interface between the RPG system and the graphical system may throw some. If you hide behind something fully and stay still you're pretty much undetectable, which is how it should be even in a straight 3ps. Stay out of the enemy's vision cones (ie stay behind them) and you're fine so long as you're reasonably careful. Get caught out of cover, run, shoot etc and you're likely to get caught. If you want to do stealth habitually then you need to invest a lot in the stealth skill, and that's fine too. There are some minor issues, largely to do with the 3rd person perspective where you can have bits poking out of cover without being aware of it, perhaps somewhat overlong vision on some enemies where you cannot tell their facing easily-largely solvable by using awareness- and the (apparent) lack of lighting modifiers on visibility, which I believe is a general UE3 issue and would require some significant coding to fix. It requires some patience and care, but I've stealthed levels even with my 1 stealth skill Thorton.

Playing on hard? From my brief experience I seem to be getting around half what it says I am so my current theory is that hard halves the cash received, but the stats screen does not take this halving into account?

It's already been pointed out (and ignored) that it's Israel's stated policy to seize anything on its (unpublished) list of banned items. That reverses the burden of proof so you need to prove that stuff hasn't been seized, not the reverse. Oh yeah, seizing undeclared "prohibited" goods is actually stealing too, and he is right describing it as such. Because in a blockade anything not specifically declared as being illegal is a "free good" and cannot be legitimately seized. Relevant San Remo section(s) follow: "149. In order to exercise the right of capture referred to in paragraphs 146(a) and 147, the belligerent must have published contraband lists. The precise nature of a belligerent's contraband list may vary according to the particular circumstances of the armed conflict. Contraband lists shall be reasonably specific. 150. Goods not on the belligerent's contraband list are 'free goods', that is, not subject to capture.." It is Israel's absolute obligation to do so- not to do so would be a war crime both under collective punishment and deliberate targeting of civilians provisions- I can give you a ref and direct quote for this too, if you'd like. It is not something done out of the goodness of their heart, they are absolutely obligated to do it. And much as some earlier in the thread may think an 18 month camping sojourn is a fun, life affirming jaunt in the fresh air and above all a humanitarian experience, the supplies Israel sends are the absolute and bare minimum they can get away with.

LucasArts definitively changed the timetable, there's no if about it "..The Sith Lords will be officially unveiled at E3 2004 and will be released for the Xbox video game system from Microsoft and for the PC in February 2005.." LucasArts, May 2004 So they definitely moved the release date up four months, with an absolute maximum of six months notice- knocking 40% (minimum) off the available development time. Under those circumstances it's a near miracle it's as finished as it is. Developers have very limited flexibility in refusing such things, the publisher wears the trousers and wields the power- at minimum you'd be unlikely to ever work with that publisher again if you refused. For a brand new dev house that is doubly true.

The main problem US reviewers have are that the days of having a decent RPG specialist on the staff are long gone, so you are going to get your RPG reviewed by someone who thinks ME2 is the epitome and apogee of RPG. If you're lucky. Else you get a Halo is an RPG type or the intern who was really hoping for RDR. In Europe you're far more likely to get someone who has, well, played an actual RPG at some time in the past decade- hence the very similar review dichotomy found with Risen where most US reviewers hated it and most Euros liked it. In any case it'd be far better if everyone ignored formal reviews and just got recommendations from people whose views they value, frankly.

OK Gromnir, I'll accept your initial point was irrelevant to the specific situation, rather than wrong. While this has been discussed already it bears restating: Israel defines a whole bunch of things as not being humanitarian aid, apart from construction materials and pre fabs and the like things as trivial as pasta (rescinded once John Kerry queried it), fresh meat and coriander are banned, and most importantly they do not publish what is acceptable or not so there is no way of knowing what Israel will arbitrarily seize at any given time. As such the Israeli offer was entirely disingenuous and a sop to those predisposed not to investigate but take its word at face value. Given the complete lack of weapons except for improvised ones such as kitchen knives I think we can safely assume there were not any AKs or rockets on board, nor even simple firearms except the ones the commandos brought. I know most of the usual suspects have been parroting the "it's a weapons embargo" line on US TV, but it's a load of rubbish. It's utterly arbitrary and designed specifically to be able to shut out anything and everything that Israel wants whether or not there's any justification for it.

None of these offer proof, I'm afraid, quite the opposite for the first two as none of the provisions applied to a ship which was not slave trading, a pirate, not flying a national flag etc. Under the definition given therein Israelis engaged in piracy- and the first two are effective duplicates too, fortunately I already knew the relevant sections so wasn't put off by link bombing- unless Israel has a recognised treaty which supercedes the provisions such as that used to monitor NK vessels, or it was part of a legally constituted blockade. Getting something from the US military saying they regularly ignore the relevant laws isn't proof either, it's as pertinent as me saying that because people regularly ignore speed limits those speed limits don't exist. The only legal recourse is that the Israeli blockade is legally constituted (and since it's recognised by three whoops two now countries and specifically has been condemned listed as violating, at the least, the humanitarian component of a valid blockade that is very much an open question) the default position is that seizing boats in international waters is piracy.

To be fair, he's pretty (in)famous for his reviews and their (lack of) quality, and there's a fair chance he is doing it deliberately but without any malign intent.

Have to admit, I got an ironic smile out of Israel saying that their commandos were armed with paint guns in practically the same breath as they were saying the fleet was an Al Qaida and Hamas aligned armada of hate, and probably smuggling weaponry as well as the admitted components of mass construction. OK, so Sweden has just declared war on Denmark, what happens now and how is that relevant to anything? Oh yeah... Post Proof or Retract.

Everything I've heard suggests Two Worlds did not sell well, but was relatively cheap to make and seen as having good potential.

It definitely did, as it contained pre fab buildings and construction materials, both of which Israel embargoes, not deeming shelter and such to be "humanitarian essentials". The boats were not heading to an Israeli port, Israel has not annexed Gaza (as they would then have to give 1 million+ Palestinians the vote) so your comparison fails at the first hurdle. In point of fact the boat woulds never pass through Israeli waters, just Gazan. The only legal defence is that it was action in maintenance of blockade, which still has some rather significant flaws. Hoho, ninja'd by WoD, of all people.

Can't get Drakensang via DD? Gamersgate at least has it if it is an option, though I guess that might count as unacceptable DRM. I can give you a link to a store in New Zealand selling it retail for roughly 20 Euros if you're really desperate to have it, but it would probably cost about as much to send it from here as to buy it in the first place.

Reinstalling on the same computer should not use a new activation unless the hardware has been changed significantly. It should return the same hash value and then use the existing activation- assuming uniloc works the same way as the SecuROM or Tages versions of activation, at least. If you haven't already done so, make sure you've fully uninstalled anything associated with the old card and fully updated everything to do with the new one- best to boot into safe mode to do so. It's probably also worth checking whether other installed games, especially newer ones, get the same or similar error or if they work fine.

Heh, even Mass Effect? Somewhat ironic given its one size fits all film grain filter application to cover up its visual quirks. Really though, why not at least pick a coherently, consistently and interestingly visual themed game like Bioshock (even Oblivion or Fallout 3 is a better example, art direction wise) for a comparison rather than Mass Effect whose art direction could not be more generic sci-fi if it tried? And buy Kaftan a beer sometime, he basically rescued your argument single handed. Until then I haven't seen a more confused critique of art direction for ages.

I think there was an understanding (at least on the US side) that this excluded protection in the case of stupidities like attacking the Russians which was -of course and according even to OSCE, albeit belatedly and mealy mouthedly- exactly what happened.

More likely there's no bonuses on PC (has this even been confirmed?) because there isn't any DLC planned so there's no mechanism for integrating it. I'd suspect Uniloc pulls the same trick SecuROM did with Bioshock and monitors installed file sizes, one of the things which made Bioshock almost completely unmoddable. If that were the case then the only way to add content is via a full patching process.